the field. My motivation wasn't so much beating others but being the best I could be. I was driven by my personal growth and improvement, at times restless to move to the next challenge.
My parents generously embraced my dream of becoming a professional AFL footballer, however fanciful it may have been. At the same time, they encouraged me to have a back-up plan ‘just in case’ the ball didn't bounce my way. That was only fair, given they had invested countless thousands of their hard-earned dollars on my secondary school education.
At the age of 15, that back-up plan was to become a physiotherapist, the rationale being that if I didn't make it as an AFL player, I could become the team physio. As I approached the end of school, it was apparent my dreams of becoming a professional footballer were never going to materialise and I didn't like science, which all but put a line through physiotherapy. That left the vexing question: what am I going to do with my life?
At the time, I had a weekend and holiday job at a local car wash and I noticed most of the people getting their cars washed were lawyers and accountants. That was enough to persuade my then 16-year-old brain that I should study law and become a solicitor. I pictured myself defending wrongly accused criminals in court, just like in the movies. I guess a lot of 16 year olds have the same ideological thoughts.
In late 2006, as I was about to enter my final year of high school, my parents announced they were going their separate ways. It was an incredibly challenging time. I was 16 and still finding my adolescent feet, and my sisters Simone and Bridget were just 14 and 11. Dad moved out of our family home and I finished my final year of school living with Mum and the girls. This would have been particularly hard for Mum to manage given that she never fell out of love with Dad. Unfortunately, Dad didn't feel the same way.
Searching for the positives (as my father always encouraged me to do), I think my parents' separation gave me a big dose of resilience and an appreciation of the power of acceptance. Sport can be good like that, too. You play a game each week and either win or lose. Regardless, you turn up to training a few days later and play another game the following weekend. Sport teaches you to move on quickly, accept the losses and self-evaluate: how can I improve? What can I do better next time?
My first encounter with financial stress
In January 2008, I commenced a bachelor's degree in law at Bond University. The Law faculty was highly regarded and the campus was just five minutes from Mum's house. Even more importantly, Bond worked on ‘trimesters’, which meant I could get through a law degree in two years and eight months. Law degrees at other universities typically required a four-year commitment and I was impatient!
To say it was a step up from high school would be an understatement, particularly for someone like me, coming in without any base knowledge of the law. We were expected to read hundreds of pages of research each week, attend lectures that ran for two hours, write short-form essays on a weekly basis and then sit exams at the end of the semester. It was a rude awakening, particularly the exams, which were almost impossible to finish. But, looking back, it was a good introduction to the daily demands of a full-time job: prioritising, and getting down the most important points as concisely and clearly as possible.
Legal studies also taught me problem-solving skills, which I have carried through my adult life. The ability to differentiate material facts from immaterial, isolating key issues and ranking them in priority, then working out what rules of law applied, before ultimately arriving at conclusions based on the application of the rules. Who wouldn't want to learn how to do that? The final challenge, of course, is concisely articulating your conclusion with a minimum number of words, regardless of how challenging or complex the scenario!
All flippancy aside, I instantly recognised these skills were invaluable — knowledge that would help me navigate my way through life. Despite that, at the completion of my first year of university in 2008, I decided that as much as I was interested in and engaged by the law, I wasn't convinced it was the career path for me.
Halfway through my law degree, while also working part time for a small firm on the Gold Coast, I discovered that as a criminal lawyer you have a duty to the court to act for a defendant even if you think the person is guilty. Morally, I couldn't come to grips with that, so I decided instead to become a corporate lawyer, adding on an accounting degree to give myself further career options.
Deep down, I wasn't enamoured with law. It felt a little bit like trying to put a square peg into a round hole. I wasn't naturally good with words, nor was I particularly good at retaining large volumes of information, especially the minutiae such as section numbers and case names. I was committed to finishing my degree, and adding a financial bent to my studies was definitely a good move. This played to my strengths from school — numbers and business — and opened more options when I finished my studies.
I was living with Dad by then and when I told him about my plan to add accounting to my university schedule, he greeted the news with great enthusiasm.
‘Absolutely, you could do that,’ I remember him saying effusively.
I alerted him to the additional cost, pointing out that it wouldn't be covered by the federal government's FEE-HELP assistance package, like my law degree, but he brushed it aside.
‘The best investment you can make is in yourself,’ he said. ‘And don't worry about the money — we'll be able to figure that out.’
My mind, at least momentarily, was put to rest.
In the middle of 2010, while I was chipping away at my dual degrees, an envelope from FEE-HELP arrived in the mail. Enclosed was an invoice for the following semester's fees — roughly $3000 for each of the four subjects ($12 000 in total). I had never received a bill before. FEE-HELP had paid the debt automatically, but now my funding had clearly run out. I had prioritised my law studies but still had about 10 per cent of the subjects to complete before I graduated and I was only 20 per cent of the way through my accounting degree. Despite Dad's ‘don't worry, we'll be able to figure that out’ assurances, I was hit by a wave of panic. That night I tentatively presented him with the invoice, hoping payment wouldn't be an issue. My worst fears were realised.
‘Geez, $12 000! That's dear as poison. Mate, we don't have $12 000,’ Dad admitted.
I could tell he was panicked and flustered, which for him was very unusual. He was always so positive and optimistic.
‘Well, what are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘I'm not sure, but we'll have to find a way to get it paid. I'm sure you'll be able to borrow the money somehow,’ my father advised.
Reflecting on that moment, I realise how naïve and entitled I was. Deep down, I had known that the FEE-HELP funding was going to run out at some point. I just assumed Dad had put aside money or had some sort of plan to meet the expense. My expense. And yet I took no responsibility. Dad told me not to worry about the money and, selfishly, that's what I did. Typical 20-year-old male thinking! Gloss over the problem and hope it simply goes away. I should have tried to understand how he was going to pay the bill. As kids, even young adults, we think our parents have all the answers in life when in fact they're just as human as we are!
The tuition fees were due in two weeks and, if the money remained outstanding, I wouldn't be able to attend classes and do my allocated subjects that semester. Again, with the benefit of hindsight, I should have seen the writing on the wall. My parents had been trying unsuccessfully for about six months to sell the family home in Robina. As I would later learn, Dad's income in his latest incarnation as a business broker was dropping, while his expenses remained static or even on the rise. My sisters were both still at school and their fees certainly weren't cheap.
